NASDA (Japan’s space agency) and NASA arranged for five Japanese students, chosen from 1,861 applicants, and their parents to participate in a live NASA in-flight space program. The program was with the International Space Station Expedition 7 crew.
Astronaut Ed Lu and Cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko participated in the program, which took place at “Tokyo FM” radio station yesterday. The program airs in Japan, to an audience of nearly one million listeners in two, two-hour radio programs in mid-July.
The student group, made up primarily of ten-year olds, was part of the National Space Development Agency of Japan’s (NASDA) Education Program entitled, “When You Wish Upon a Star.” Following a background lecture from astronaut Mamoru Mohri, the five students posed questions to the Station crew concerning the event’s theme: “Dreams of the Future Earth.” The students and their parents were able to both listen and watch as the astronauts responded.
The Space Station event was planned as a way of encouraging students to think more about space and possibilities for the future. According to NASDA officials, its Education Program provides a unique opportunity to foster among Japanese children the “first strong consciousness and aspects of oneself as an earthling.”
“NASA is grateful for the opportunity to engage young people from around the world in educational opportunities such as the International Space Station in-flight program,” said Debbie Brown Biggs, Team Lead for NASA’s Teaching from Space Program. “Perhaps through this kind of event, we can get young people thinking about how science and technology transcend national borders. It is our students of today who will lead the way in the scientific endeavors of tomorrow,” she said.
The International Space Station program, provided via NASA downlink, is one in a series of downlinks to educational organizations across the country and abroad, and an integral component of NASA’s Teaching from Space Program. The Teaching from Space Program, managed from the Johnson Space Center, Houston, facilitates educational opportunities that use the unique environment of human space flight. The program builds partnerships with education communities to create unique learning opportunities through the use of NASA research and educational technology.
For information about NASDA’s Tsukuba Space Center visit:
http://www.nasda.go.jp/about/centers/tksc/index_e.html